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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The Making of a Slip Cover

This past weekend I had a burst of energy and decided to make a slip cover for my living room chair. If you follow my blog you know that we just got a new sectional from IKEA {that I am totally in love with!} and I wanted to change out my LR chair. Its a great chair and is modern in style but the leaves are a bit too busy for me.

The new couch is a linen-y color which goes perfectly with drop cloth fabric. Using a canvas drop cloth is an economical way to make curtains, pillows and even a slip cover!

Let me preface my weak tutorial by saying that I'm not a seamstress and I've never done this type of a slip cover before. So I am going to show you what I did. I'm a visual learner and have to figure some things out by trial and error.

If you want to use drop cloth fabric {that you can find at Lowe's, Home Depot, or any other home improvement store} always wash it first. Out of the package it is stiff but once its washed it becomes soft and more pliable/workable.

Here's how I started:

Basically what we want to accomplish is an inside out slip cover that we will pin completely in place before we pull it off and sew it up.

I first took my fabric and wrapped it around the back of my chair, inside out! Using straight pins pin it around the top and sides. {This is the largest section of the chair to cover which is why I started here first.}

Next I cut out the inside back of the chair and pinned it to the outside back piece.

I used the chalk to more clearly mark where I needed to sew. Once you pull the slipcover off it because a mess of fabric and pins and you forget where you need to stitch. This was a HUGE time saver.

My third piece was the outline of the seat of my chair.

Once this piece is cut pin it to the back piece.

The fourth and final piece is the front piece. It goes across the front of the chair and up the arms. This was the trickiest part for me. {and it may or may not have involved some seam ripping and re-sewing~a few times}

Once it is all pinned you gently pull it off your chair and sew it together. I just used a basic sewing machine, regular white thread and had my stitch size setting at 1 {keeping it small will make it more durable}.

To make it a little more clear, with my fancy computer imaging I will show you the pieces I cut. This also includes what I needed for the cushion.

The cushion was a bit easier. This involved a top and a bottom piece then my side piece. They sewed together like a box kind of......I will admit that I left it open on the bottom back seam and didn't finish it. You could add a velcro enclosure if you want. I didn't have any on hand yet.

This was pinned together the same way as the chair cover.

Its not fancy but its a slip cover. {They aren't supposed to be fancy, right?} I love that it blends well with the couch and I can pull it off and wash it any time! Yippee for that!

If you are wondering what kind of time this takes, for me it was about a 3 hour project not including the washing of the fabric. Not too bad!

11 comments:

I love this! Good for you. I've always wondered if a dropcloth would come out of the dryer as a wrinkled heap. Does it lose its wrinkles when it's in the dryer? And was your canvas dropcloth 100% cotton? I'm really thinking of doing this with my couch! Loved this tutorial. Thanks.

Good tutorial! I did some slip covers the other day for my sofa set. Took a while, especially since I decided not to use the small machine that I have- don't ask.

I loved working with that fabric. It's a beige background with light cream swirls. On top of those swirls and the background, there are solid black leaves printed. It's beautiful. I did it in a similar manner to you, except that I didn't use any chalk. Over time I've found ways to get around that because chalk has to be rinsed out and I can't bother with that sometimes.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hi, my name is Jody! I am a blessed mother of 4 and wife to an amazing husband. I'm not perfect and neither is my blog. This is my creative outlet for all the fun projects I like to do around our little house.

"Homey Home" is what my kids call our house and I hope that they always think of it this way. If you want to create a homey space as well I hope you will find some inspiration here! Thanks for joining me on this journey!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned in some of my posts in the hope that I would give it a good review on my blog. I have also included a few in text links to advertisers. Regardless, I only recommend products or services that I would use or that which I think my readers would find useful. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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